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Antonucci to lead push to save Common Core

By Anna Burgess, aburgess@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
03/25/2016 06:32:57 AM EDT

Former Fitchburg State University President Robert Antonucci last week announced he will head an organization opposing the state ballot question that could repeal the Common Core-based Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.

The Committee to Protect Educational Excellence in Massachusetts, chaired by Antonucci, will lobby in favor of keeping the current state frameworks, which are based on national Common Core standards to mark students' progress in learning math, reading, and critical-thinking skills.

The frameworks were adapted from Common Core in 2010 by Massachusetts educators, but Antonucci said they were also built on years of frameworks being developed at the state level since the Education Reform Act of 1993.

The CPEE, Antonucci said, is "about doing what's right for students."

"It's about allowing the process that's worked so well since 1993 to continue," he said. "Massachusetts sits at or near the top of virtually every ranking in student performance. You can't argue with the results we've had."

"I don't think decisions should be made at the ballot box about what is taught in school," Antonucci continued. "That's why we have school committees, boards of education, teachers, and superintendents."

The ballot question the CPEE opposes is the result of a movement to end Common Core in Massachusetts, led by Worcester non-profit Common Core Forum.

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Common Core opponents like this non-profit argue that there is not enough opportunity for public input, discussion, and debate in Massachusetts education policy.

"There weren't teachers at the table when they were forming the Common Core standards, like there were in 1993 when the state standards were created," said Donna Colorio, the founder of Common Core Forum. "A lot of teachers still have the old standards in their desk drawer."

Colorio added that "there's not a single shred of evidence that Common Core is working anywhere," and that Massachusetts has lowered its standards to be part of the federal initiative.

Antonucci said opponents have "a perception that the federal government is going to be intrusive in what local educators do, but that couldn't be further from the truth."

"It's a partnership," he said, "you're much stronger when you have the federal, state and local governments working together."

Members of the CPEE include teachers, superintendents, parents, businesses and non-profit organizations. According to a press release last week from the committee, those involved all "share deep concern that the proposed repeal would undermine educators, hurt students, and put the nation's leading education system at risk."

They will campaign and raise money "for marketing and informational purposes," Antonucci said. "There's a lot of misinformation about common core and curriculum frameworks."

In 2010, Massachusetts English and math teachers, along with higher education officials and employers, worked together over several months to add onto the Common Core State Standards and create the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.

Later that year, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted the final version of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics.

But Colorio insisted that "there's no way these are Massachusetts standards."

"They're Common Core," she said.

The CPEE said reverting back to older frameworks would be financially disastrous, because school districts have spent the past five years investing hundreds of millions of dollars in curriculum, teacher professional development, and textbooks.

Educators, they said, have invested millions of hours learning the standards and developing and refining lesson plans, and the so-called "End Common Core" initiative proposed for November would "jeopardize the progress Massachusetts students and educators have made under the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks."

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